Background 

IKEA is a multinational group that designs and sells a range of products for various rooms across the house and are sold to be readily assembled at home with operations in 45 countries across the world. The organisation was formed in Sweden in 1953 with the original shops opening in Sweden followed by Norway, Denmark and later Switzerland and Germany. IKEA is a private company with a revenue of 22.9 Billion euros as of 2017, and employees 160,000 across 365 countries making it the largest furniture retailer in the world

The Article 

IKEA has followed a traditional approach of business techniques however, this has technique has seen its faults as the departments within IKEA have not been efficiently communicated information. By efficiently utilising the social media channels across all their regions, departments and applications IKEA can remain up-to-date, can easily share information amongst the team and adapt to changes in consumer tastes.

An important step that IKEA took was forming a ‘listening hub’ in order for them to transform into a socially intelligent business. IKEA’s Digital Development team along with a group called the ‘Socialisers’ selected the analysis software ‘Brandwatch Vizia’, this software assessed data across social media platforms by searching conversations where customers used key words such as ‘customer service’ or ‘cust serv’. This was assessed over a 3 month period, where the regions were filtered to the UK and US. This software formed interesting findings, as in the US the main platforms that complaints were formed were through Facebook where as in the UK it was through forums such as Yelp.

Analysis 

What was interesting about this article was that the software can analyse conversations across various channels and is filtered by key words. IKEA can analyse their customer preferences through regions as different cultures tend to vent their opinions through different platforms. From this IKEA can identify what customer’s opinions are from various regions in the world by the platform that this population tend to use. IKEA can then focus their attention on how to change customer’s perception of the brand. This can be done by identifying the relevant department and efficiently passing on this information to them, so that they can change the way that they do things.

Competitors 

–          Zoho social– engagement level and focus on posts

–          Hootsuite– social media management platform

–          Sprout social- social media management, engagement and analytics solutions for leading agencies and brands

–          Sendible– manage social media more effectively for clients, all social networks together into a centralised hub

References

Bloomberg. (2018). IKEA of Sweden AB. Online: https://www.bloomberg.com/profiles/companies/4168877Z:SS-ikea-of-sweden-ab (Accessed 1st October 2018).

Craft. (2018). IKEA. Online: https://craft.co/ikea (Accessed 1st October 2018)

Forbes. (2018). IKEA is a World Wide Wonder. Online: https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2012/12/05/ikea-is-a-world-wide-wonder/#70018be27b9b (Accessed 1st October 2018).

IKEA Foundation. (2018). History. Online: https://www.ikeafoundation.org/about-us-ikea-foundation/history/ (Accessed 1st October 2018).